US "HOOD"

[kurt]

Was there an equivalent to the HMS Hood in the minds of Navy in the between the wars years with regards to affection or status? Old Ironsides excluded.

[Jack Ray]

That is an excellent and rare question.
On reflection, It seems that USS Lexington may fit the bill. Between the wars, Lexington and Saratoga were the biggest, fastest and most high-tech warships afloat. Lexington symbolized the future and made us forget about our troubles (i.e., the Depression). Other contenders for this position are the rigid dirigibles USS Macon and USS Akron--also symbolic of better times to come.

Jack Ray

[Dustermaker]

ya the Lexington class BC's would have been INSANE. In overall size they were larger than the Iowa's. Someone did a buildup on one of them in the review section. He posted it next to the New Jersey i believe and i was very suprised at its size. IMO it would have been much more impressive than the Hood.

[Laurence Batchelor]

...and likewise a 1921 G3 Invincible class would have looked more impressive than a Hood or a Lex

Though Hood's silouette is better balanced from all angles

[bengtsson]

I think Lex and Sara did fill a big role in the minds of the American public as regards their image of the USN. I think the Carrier appealed to an Air Minded nation. And these ships made it into alot of newsreels and even a few movies. Their arrival in any port was headline news for local papers. Hood was the image and symbol of the inter war RN, I think in a somewhat lesser way we could say Lex and Sara filled that role here in the US. After all, what USN BB would at that time compare to either Hood or Lex & Sara??

Bob B.

[Guest]

Bob B. said:

After all, what USN BB would at that time compare to either Hood or Lex & Sara??

None.

Jack Ray

[Guest]

In overall size they were larger than the Iowa's.

No, they were not.

Also, they were very poorly designed. Although they were more heavily armed than the Hood, they carried much less armor, and what they did carry were much thinner. In a duel, I would place my bets on the Hood.

In their battlecruiser roles the Lexingtons would have been very seriously outclass by the G-3 and Japanese Akagi class battlecruiser. Their battleship counterparts the South Dakotas were also somewhat inferior to what is being planned in Japan and Britain.

It was the fact that our dream battleships and battlecruisers would be outclassed almost before they were commissioned, and not any sudden attack of enlightened pacificism, that prompted our call for the battleship holiday.

[Guest]

Was there an equivalent to the HMS Hood in the minds of Navy in the between the wars years with regards to affection or status? Old Ironsides excluded.

The carrier Lexington.

[Jack Ray]

guest wrote:

In their battlecruiser roles the Lexingtons would have been very seriously outclass by the G-3 and Japanese Akagi class battlecruiser. Their battleship counterparts the South Dakotas were also somewhat inferior to what is being planned in Japan and Britain.

It was the fact that our dream battleships and battlecruisers would be outclassed almost before they were commissioned, and not any sudden attack of enlightened pacificism, that prompted our call for the battleship holiday.

The above is very true. The Lexingtons, as battlecruisers, were similar to the Courageous/Furious. However, as aircraft carriers they new no peer and literally ran circles and swarmed planes around all of their contemporaries. They were bad to the bone.

Jack Ray

[bengtsson]

guest wrote:

In their battlecruiser roles the Lexingtons would have been very seriously outclass by the G-3 and Japanese Akagi class battlecruiser. Their battleship counterparts the South Dakotas were also somewhat inferior to what is being planned in Japan and Britain.

It was the fact that our dream battleships and battlecruisers would be outclassed almost before they were commissioned, and not any sudden attack of enlightened pacificism, that prompted our call for the battleship holiday.

The above is very true. The Lexingtons, as battlecruisers, were similar to the Courageous/Furious. However, as aircraft carriers they new no peer and literally ran circles and swarmed planes around all of their contemporaries. They were bad to the bone.

Jack Ray

Agreed, they were by far the best conversion of BB/BC hulls into Carriers of the three nations that tried it. The full deck/large island design was far better than the Japanese or British first attempts. As a first step to a carrier force, they were the best in the world in their time.

Bob B.

[Laurence Batchelor]

It's a pity none of the other Admiral class Battlecruiser hulls were in a final stage of build, one of those converted into an aircraft carrier by 1920-1926 would have been interesting to see and compare with Lex & Sara as the size would make a better comparison than Argus or Eagle.

What always surprised me with Lex & Sara is the huge jump the USN seemed to take with them, when in other areas, like as already pointed out, the Battlecruiser or Fast Battleship by 1918-1922. Their lack of wartime activity and lack of design testing in WW1 and just after meant their designs were lagging behind in that area. Though I would say their engines were superior.

This wasn't the case with Lex & Sara and it has always struck me how it almost seemed one whole area of their warship design seemed to improve by 'leaps and bounds' whilst others had lagged.

Not being a USN navalist hopefully someone can tell me why?

[Werner]

Although considered battlecruisers, these ships were in reality very large scouting cruisers. They were not expected to combine with the battle force in any way, but instead act to support light forces or possibly the predreadnoughts depending on the problem.

They were meant to defeat cruisers of the Hawkins type which were trying to turn the corner of the screen and attack the train.

Do not be too hard on them; since the USN was given the final details of Hood, they are in fact that ship with the few details seen from American eyes corrected.

[Lesforan]

I think we are overlooking a major point here.

While the Lexington/Saratoga may have carried the same symbolism as the Hood, they were not used in the same way. The Hood is way beyond comparision to anybody else's ship in this regard.

The Hood was the very symbol of British Imperial Naval Power. An exercise in state-of-the-art battlecruiser construction when commissioned,
she was the biggest and baddest ship of her type for many years. For most of the interwar period, she was the largest capital ship in the world and one of the fastest. Subjected to repeated refittings, she emerged as a prototype of the fast battleship concept.

The novel use of the Hood was as a PR device for the RN. She was used to host public open houses on many occassions, including events specially planned for children. She was sent on a heavily-promoted round-the-world tour, open for public visitation at the ports she called at. For many British subjects, as well as others around the world, she was literally the face of the RN. As such, she ran the risk of being a "national treasure", too valuable to risk in combat. Her appearance and capability were markedly reduced in her last refitting before her loss. Maybe she could have given a better accounting of herself had she not been stripped of her secondary armament.

I see no ship in the USN that had been used in the promotional way Hood was. In the relatively innocent world of the 1920's, perhaps a navy's supership could be spared for a tour like Hood's. Security concerns alone would prevent such a tour today.

[bengtsson]

I think we are overlooking a major point here.

While the Lexington/Saratoga may have carried the same symbolism as the Hood, they were not used in the same way. The Hood is way beyond comparision to anybody else's ship in this regard.

The Hood was the very symbol of British Imperial Naval Power. An exercise in state-of-the-art battlecruiser construction when commissioned,
she was the biggest and baddest ship of her type for many years. For most of the interwar period, she was the largest capital ship in the world and one of the fastest. Subjected to repeated refittings, she emerged as a prototype of the fast battleship concept.

The novel use of the Hood was as a PR device for the RN. She was used to host public open houses on many occassions, including events specially planned for children. She was sent on a heavily-promoted round-the-world tour, open for public visitation at the ports she called at. For many British subjects, as well as others around the world, she was literally the face of the RN. As such, she ran the risk of being a "national treasure", too valuable to risk in combat. Her appearance and capability were markedly reduced in her last refitting before her loss. Maybe she could have given a better accounting of herself had she not been stripped of her secondary armament.

I see no ship in the USN that had been used in the promotional way Hood was. In the relatively innocent world of the 1920's, perhaps a navy's supership could be spared for a tour like Hood's. Security concerns alone would prevent such a tour today.

While I agree with most of the above, it was not so novel for HMS Hood to open to the public as a PR device. In fact reading first hand accounts of service in the Royal Navy, one finds ships often made cruises to other UK ports and were very often opened to public tours. Even the small ships hosted the public in many out of the way little harbors and ports. This was simply a part of the RNs standard procedure.
That said, of course HOOD was a massive draw for the people of Britain. Who wouldn't want an onboard visit if she was in your home harbor? I had a friend in Edinburgh who got the chance to go aboard a number of RN BBs and Cruisers in the 1937-39 period as part of open public days.
Lex and Sara were really a great leap forward in Carrier design. A small stroke of genius to come up with the standard carrier layout at such an early stage. One drawback with the big BC hulls was their unhandiness in combat. Slow respose to helm and huge turning circles plus long hulls for targets made them vulnerable against torpedo attacks of all types.

Bob B.

[chuck]

It is somewhat unfortunate for Britain that she stopped the Hood class at one ship and did not proceed with 3 remaining ships of class. The fact that the other 3 Hoods were cancelled without serious work being done, combined with the fact that British response to 8-8 and Lexington/South Dakota was late and has not started at the conclusion of Washinton negotiation, meant Britain had no large unfinished battlecruiser hulls available for carrier conversion as had US and Japan.

I wonder what effect it would have had on British naval outlook and the role of fleet air arms had Britain been able to convert 2 incomplete Hood hulls or G-3 hulls to carriers in a similar fashion to Akagi and Lexington.

[Rob]

...and likewise a 1921 G3 Invincible class would have looked more impressive than a Hood or a Lex

Though Hood's silouette is better balanced from all angles

Actually.......having built a G3, an N3, Hood and Lexington, I have to say that in terms of looks Lexington takes top prize.

Purely from the aesthetical point of view, the G3 and N3 both have very large bare spaces and have the tanker-ish look the RN seemed to like at the time.

Lexington just pips Hood IMHO due to the hull shape and also the siting of the secondary battery.

Cheers,

Rob

[Laurence Batchelor]

I think the barren look with the G3 & N3 is partly down to the IHP kits not having vast amounts of detail, and the plans published of them likewise.

You have to admit the 7 funnel Lexington looked terrible also!

[Rob]

I think the barren look with the G3 & N3 is partly down to the IHP kits not having vast amounts of detail, and the plans published of them likewise.

You have to admit the 7 funnel Lexington looked terrible also!

Mine do! Plenty you can add to flesh out both kits, but you do still end up with a lot of dead space.

Actually, I was tempted to build the Lex with 7 funnels.....might do if I ever buy another one.

Cheers,

Rob

[Laurence Batchelor]

I'll check your gallery again then Rob.
I don't seem to remember much hull detail/armour belt detail/ superstructure detail and on-deck detail on those kits regardless if using Tamiya parts to help superdetail.

I just had a peek at your lovely G3 once again, and once I wiped the drool from my mouth.
I see you worked lots of detail into the forecastle, but it looks barren around Q-turret, and around the funnel area.
This is a lack of detail in the kit stemming from Mike only being able to go on the basic plans published for this class.
The hull also is very flat, but againt thats the kit and due to a set of hull lines not having been published.
I couldn't see a stern photograph to make out the detail in that area.
But I think they would have had those Hood like squarish windows around where the Admirals cabin would have been.
Also these ships would have likely had 10-barrelled pom-poms, so they would have to be scratched.

But comparing the kit to my NMM plan and the artists impressions I've seen drawn if one would have been in service there would be a heck of a lot more deck detail for fittings etc.
But then again as its a 'what if ship', thats the fun of it it doesn't have to be and can never be accurate.

Don't get me wrong I'm not criticising your fine build, just stating the ship would look less barren if one actually got into service.

Have you built the N3 yet? I didn't see that in your gallery, or am I having another blind moment?

[Rob]

Laurence,

I did the G3 as I guessed she would look pre-1930 and thus as a comparison to my early Rodney. I did toy with the idea of an aircraft atop Q turret, but decided against it as the crane would foul the training of that turret. Although I fleshed out the build quite a bit, I think any ship of this concept will suffer from large dead spaces. I tend to think the French ships did as well.

When you test-fit Q turret you will see that as the barbette is quite low, there's a limit to what you can do here.

I did the N3 as per WW2 - she is in WW2 admiralty disruptive scheme with a fairly heavy AA battery, extra pom-poms and about 20-30 20mm.

I cluttered up the roof of both of B and Q turrets, pls there's extra AA on the boat deck and foc's'l plus a full radar fit.

So the N3, it pretty mcuh ends up lookig like a big mid-war Rodney.

Not got round to posting the N3 - then again I post about a quarter of what I build.

Cheers,

Rob